After child surgery deaths, experts discuss the risks

3:39 PM,
Jan. 31, 2014

Finley Boyle.

Written by

Michelle Healy, USA TODAY

Parents who sign consent forms for medical or dental procedures on their children often do so with trepidation. For many, that concern likely increased in recent weeks with reports that seemingly commonplace procedures - in one case a tonsillectomy, in another, dental work - ended in two children's deaths.

Tonsillectomy-related fatalities are not common; they occur in the "1 in every 30,000 range," says physician Richard Rosenfeld, director of the Institute for Advanced Otolaryngology at New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn.